Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

every meeting, was so fragile, partly because they had been like walking on eggs with Annie, that he was turning normal behavior into perceived slights. They were police officers in public – in a bloody chapel, for crying out loud. What did he expect her to do? Make doe eyes at him? Walk over to his pew and sit on his knee and whisper sweet nothings in his ear?

“This morning, in the station, I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed last night, but I could hardly say that in the cop shop, could I?”

She reached over and touched his sore lip. “I enjoyed it, too.”

“Are you coming back to the house?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t like that sort of thing.”

“Me, neither. I’d better go, though.”

“Of course.”

They walked down one of the narrow gravel paths between graves, carved headstones dark with rain. Yews overhung the path and rain dripped from their leaves onto the umbrella, tapping harder than the drizzle. “You said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes.” Michelle told him about Dr. Wendell’s tentative identification of the Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife and Harris’s wartime record.

Banks whistled between his teeth. “And you say Jet Harris was a commando?”

“Yes.”

“Bloody hell. That’s a real can of worms.” Banks shook his head. “It’s hard to believe that Jet Harris might have killed Graham,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, what possible motive could he have had?”

“I don’t know. Only what we speculated about yesterday, that he was somehow connected with Fiorino and the porn racket and Graham fell foul of them. Even so, it’s hard to imagine someone in Harris’s position doing a job like that himself. And we don’t really have any hard evidence; it’s all just circumstantial. Anyway, he’s not the only candidate. I remembered Mrs. Walker – you know, the woman in the newsagent’s – said something about Donald Bradford being in a special unit in Burma. I checked. Turns out it was a commando unit.”

“Bradford, too? That complicates things.”

“Well, at least we know that Bradford had some sort of involvement with pornography. We don’t even have any evidence that Harris was bent yet,” said Michelle. “Only Shaw’s behavior. Which brings me to our interview with Des Wayman.”

“What did he have to say for himself?”

Michelle told him about Wayman’s assertion that Shaw was behind last night’s attack. “He’d deny he ever said it if we challenged him, and I’m sure Shaw will deny it, too.”

“But we know it’s true,” said Banks. “That gives us an edge. It was a stupid move on Shaw’s part. It means he’s worried, getting desperate. What about the burglary at your flat, the van that tried to run you down?”

Michelle shook her head. “Wayman knows nothing about that. Shaw must have got someone else, maybe someone a bit brighter. My impression is that Wayman is okay for the strong-arm stuff but couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag.”

“Like Bill Marshall?”

“Yes. You think we should have a chat with Shaw?”

“Soon. It’d be nice to know a bit more about Harris first.”

“I’ll call you later.”

“Okay.” Michelle turned and carried on walking down the path.

“Where are you going now?” Banks asked.

She slowed, turned and smiled at him. “You’re a very nosy fellow,” she said. “And you know what happens to nosy fellows, don’t you?” Then she walked on, leaving Banks to gape after her. He could swear he saw her shoulders shaking with laughter.

“Okay, Liz, are you going to tell us the truth now?” Annie asked once the interview room was set up and the tapes turned on.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, Ryan and me,” Liz said.

“I have to remind you that you’re entitled to a lawyer. If you can’t afford one we’ll get a duty solicitor for you.”

Liz shook her head. “I don’t need a lawyer. That’s like admitting I did it.”

“As you like. You know we found drugs in your flat, don’t you?”

“There wasn’t much. It was only… you know, for Ryan and me.”

“It’s still a crime.”

“Are you going to arrest us for that?”

“Depends on what you have to tell me. I just want you to know that you’re in trouble already. You can make it better by telling me the truth, or you can make it worse by continuing with your lies. What’s it to be, Liz?”

“I’m tired.”

“The sooner we’re done with this, the sooner you can go home. What’s it to be?”

Liz nibbled at her trembling lower lip.

“Maybe it would help,” said Annie, “if I told you we found traces of Luke’s blood under your bathroom sink.”

Liz looked at her, wide-eyed. “But we didn’t kill Luke. Honest, we didn’t!”

“Tell me what happened. Convince me.”

Liz started crying. Annie passed her some tissues and waited till she calmed down. “Did Luke call at your flat the day he disappeared?” she asked.

After a long silence, Liz said, “Yes.”

“Good,” breathed Annie. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“But we didn’t do him any harm.”

“Okay. We’ll get to that. What time did he arrive?”

“Time? I don’t know. Early in the evening. Maybe sixish.”

“So he must have come straight from the market square?”

“I suppose so. I don’t know where he’d been. He was a bit upset, I remember, because he said some of the kids from the school had pushed him around in the square, so maybe he had come straight from there.”

“What happened in the flat?”

Liz looked down at her chewed fingernails.

“Liz?”

“What?”

“Was Ryan there?”

“Yes.”

“All the time? Even when Luke arrived?”

“Yes.”

So that put paid to Annie’s theory that Ryan had interrupted something between Liz and Luke. “What did the three of you do?”

Liz paused, then took a deep breath. “First we had something to eat,” she said. “It must’ve been around teatime.”

“Then what?”

“We just talked, went through a few songs.”

“I thought you did your rehearsals in the church basement.”

“We do. But Ryan’s got an acoustic guitar. We just played around with a couple of arrangements, that’s all.”

“And then?”

Again, Liz fell silent and her eyes filled with tears. She rubbed the back of her hand across her face and said, “Ryan rolled a joint. Luke… he’d… like he was a virgin, you know, when it came to drugs. I mean we’d offered to share before but he always said no.”